1. Field of the Invention
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a method of jetting a liquid crystal, an a liquid crystal jetting apparatus for performing the method and a method of manufacturing a liquid crystal panel using the above-mentioned apparatus. More particularly, exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a method of jetting a liquid crystal used in a liquid crystal display device, a liquid crystal jetting apparatus for performing the method and a method of manufacturing a liquid crystal panel using the above-mentioned apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional liquid crystal display (“LCD”) device includes a lower substrate, an upper substrate, and a liquid crystal layer interposed between the lower substrate and the upper substrate. A pixel electrode is formed on the lower substrate, and a common electrode is formed on the upper substrate. When a voltage is applied between the pixel electrode and the common electrode, an arrangement of liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer is changed, and optical transmittance of the liquid crystal molecules is adjusted in accordance with the changed arrangement of the liquid crystal molecules to display an image.
Examples of a method for disposing the liquid crystal molecules between the lower substrate and the upper substrate include an injecting method and a dropping method.
There are some problems in the injecting method. For example, more liquid crystal molecules than an intended amount can be supplied to a cell gap between the lower substrate and the upper substrate, or an additional process for cleaning the LCD panel contaminated with the oversupplied liquid crystal molecules may be necessary. There are also some problems in the dropping method. For example, a size of a droplet of the liquid crystal molecule dropped on a substrate is too large, and a degree of spread of the dropped liquid crystal molecules may be different. Therefore, a boundary between adjacent droplets of the liquid crystal molecules may be perceived by sight, which causes a stain to appear in the liquid crystal layer. Accordingly, a baking process for removing the stain of the liquid crystal layer may be necessary in the dropping method, and thus the process for disposing the liquid crystal molecules becomes complicated.
A spray method has been proposed to solve the stain problem of the dropping method. However, it is hard to control a size, a volume, and a drop position of the droplet in the spray method. Therefore, it is difficult to form a liquid crystal layer having an uniform thickness using the spray method.